These are a few of my favorite words.

It sucks and it’s meant that I’ve missed deadlines and had to alter contracts and I doubted myself every minute of the day. It’s mostly mental illness and also some auto-immune disease stuff and I’ve been afraid to write anything about it because acknowledging it might make it real and permanent. (Yes, I realize this is crazy. I’m crazy. We match.)

But I start to slowly come back to having a brain that doesn’t actively want to kill me (I’M KNOCKING ON WOOD RIGHT HERE, LIFE. DONT FUCK ME.) and I can tell it’s working again because I wake up with words in my head. Like, literally a word will be stuck inside my mind. It taps around and says itself over and over until I write it down, and then I write more, and suddenly I have a paragraph.

It’s not a very good paragraph. It’s the first shaky walk you take to your kitchen to forage for food after a week of food poisoning, or the song that you can’t sing well because your vocal cords have forgotten how to work. But it’s better than where I was last week when I couldn’t remember a single melody and my feet went missing. This is a metaphor. Not a great one, but it’s a push that moves the rusty hinges and turns a useless broken wall into an almost door.

This might not make sense to you. That’s okay. Because it makes sense to me and that’s an incredible relief when you think your words are gone forever.

My words are still here. They’re trickling back in. Slowly, but I’m okay with that.

And to celebrate? A few of my favorite words:

Tintinnabulation ~ The lingering sound of a ringing bell that occurs after the bell has been struck

Gloaming – The moment of dusk that’s best for playing as a child. It isn’t so much a time as it is a place. You go for a walk in the gloaming.

L’esprit de l’escalier – (Technically not a single word, but it counts as one since it’s French and when I say it out aloud it sounds like one big, beautiful word.) The spirit of the staircase that tells you the witty thing you should have said when you were still in the conversation inside.

Cellar ~ It’s just pretty to say. You can smell the must, and feel the bright, wet cold on your face when you say it.

Baffled ~ me, all the time.

Unintelligible ~ You can’t say this word without sounding very smart. Unless you mispronounce it. Which is still fine because you can say you did it ironically on purpose.

Ethereal ~ I mispronounced this until I was 20. Even mispronounced it’s pretty.

Superstitious ~ This word is like a song. When I’m in a bad place I whisper it over and over, like a chant or prayer. It doesn’t have a meaning when I use it as a spell, but it pulls me out of my head. It’s hypnotic.

Hypnotic. I just remembered I like that one too.

Phosphenes ~ Those flashes of light and color that come out when you rub your eyes.

Dementophobia – The fear of insanity. The word sounds like falling down a spiral staircase…but gracefully.

Hiraeth: if I’m remembering correctly, this word means a feeling of homesickness for a place or time you cannot go back to or may never have existed. It’s a welsh word with no direct translation in English and I think it’s beautiful.

I am sorry you are going through it. Just know you aren’t alone. And my favorite word is Galapagos, as in the island. It is just fun to say. G.a.l.a.p.a.g.o.s haha. I hope you feel better, I know that is hard, I go through it as well.

Just the thought of ‘gloaming’ makes me homesick for a backyard in NC. Based on your amazing posts I would never have guessed you had writer’s block. Wow. You continue to amaze me. I’ve not laughed so much in years as I have at some of your posts since I ‘discovered’ you a month or two ago. Lord help me if this is not you at full tilt.

Oh, welcome back! So glad you’ve found a way to write again. My anti-depressant seems to have stolen my writing ability – I’ve heard it’s happened to others. Prozac may have saved my life, but it’s taken some things away, also. I hope to be able to find them again.
Anyway – I’m so glad you’re back! May the world get brighter and brighter (but not so bright you go blind!). 😀

I’ve always liked the feel of “eutony”. And it’s a eutonic word, too! The pleasantness of a word’s sound.

Snuggery is my all time favourite though. It’s like onomatopeia, except instead of sounding like a noise, it sounds like a feeling. Snuggery, a warm and comfortable place.
I love beautiful, exotic, uncommon words.

You might find “kintsukuroi” useful. I think it’s a Japanese word (but I could be wrong) meaning “to repair with gold”. Like repairing a dropped plate with gold or silver lacquer, and understanding that it becomes more beautiful for having been broken. It makes me think of you.

I really like indubitably. It’s just fun to say. It sort of bounces in your mouth.
Also effervescent because it feels like that when you say it. It’s like a mouth-feel onomatopoeia.
Also, onomatopoeia.

My favorite word from French class was chouette (“shwet”), which meant “cool.” All the French class kids would wander around the halls going “C’est chouette, n’est pas?” just to sound smarter and more awesome than the non-French speakers.

I’ve wanted to be able to write for years. I wish I had the time, and when I do have the time, I wish I had the inspiration. I’m working on it.

I’m in a screenwriting course and suffering massive writers block & the anxiety of the deadlines and my brain not wanted to work to get things on paper has felt DIBILITATING! I’m so glad I stumbled across this. Thank you for sharing. You’re not crazy. You’re talented and it helps to hear talented people go through this too! If it helps you I was working for a big time produced that asked me to blog for one of his movies. We were talking about writing styles and he sent me your blog. He said you were funny and witty and his favorite blogger and that I should try to mimic you! So there! And has produced some big things!
Good luck and let the past be the past, you’re a bad ass b will definitely overcome.
Xo
Bridget

Cleave: it’s one of those paradoxical words, that means both to cut in two (“cleaver” is the same root) but also to cling tightly together, as in “to cleave” to something. Except I don’t think it’s paradoxical, really, or if it is, it’s in the amazingly metaphysical way we are always separate from the things we love, no matter how close we try to hold them!

Also? “Chuffed”–that marvelous British term that means something like honored and pleased but also very humble.

I just got my words back after several months of writer’s block (my publisher is thrilled). It feels like I’m finally myself again. I love your favorite words. These are a few of mine:

petrichor: (the smell of dirt after a rain) because it is a beautiful word for a my favorite scent
oxymoron: because it always makes me smile to say
trebuchet: because it is fun to say
shenanigans: this one always makes me think of my oldest friend who calls me a “shenanigator”
seanchaí: this one is Irish for “storyteller” – it is a magical word to me

This isn’t a word, but to say that I’ve been scared that I’ve lost my words for a long time. I found some words, but there isn’t the joy to them that there were before. So NOW I’m scared that I’ve lost the joy to my words, and that I’ll never have that joy when I have my words again. And I don’t know if anyone understands, or how to fix it, and sometimes it makes things really lonely. (That and I don’t really have any friends. So, you know, there’s that.)

Chicken, monkey, pumpkin, munchkin – I love that swallowed k sound, it’s like I get to keep a bit of the word inside me when I say it. My favourite word to write is aluminium, you can just write the a and then go on for ever and ever.
I like saying sociopathy and psychopathy. I just learnt how to say paradigm (who knew that was a silent g huh?) I still don’t really know what it means though, but that’s ok. I like names that start with the letter J. I like the word onomatopoeic, and I like nouns that are onomatopoeic, not adjectives but nouns really do it for me: rushes, clock, whip, locomotive…
Ugh, words are just the best

I have a whole wall for my favorite words! As soon as I decide which wall will be the Wall of Words. Also, I worry that I will have to make tough choices if the Wall isn’t big enough to hold all the awesome words. Will I have to eradicate one word to put a new favorite word on the Wall?

AND…..I hope you will soon squint your eyes at the brightness when you fully emerge from your dark place.

sphygmomanometer – the blood pressure cuff at the doctor’s office…It just sounds so Sciency! Spellcheck just said Sciency is not a word…when is Microsoft going to upgrade their spellcheck to understand “you know what I mean” words!!!!

Your words make perfect sense, Jenny, and as always, they’re beautiful. My depression also steals my words from me when it gets very bad, so your metaphor… well, it sings true. 🙂

As for words, I’ve seen defenestration mentioned already, and that’s a classic. I also like anemone. Like sea anemones, the little stinging critters that live in the ocean. I don’t know why, but it’s just satisfying to say. Anemone~

Thing-e-ma-bob
Cat-e-whomp-us
Slither – it sound like what it looks like – I LOVE words like that
Unctuous
Serendipity
Voluptuous
Superfluous – just the idea makes me go ahhhh
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

And these are just a few of my favorite things…. (OH great – now I am singing Doe a deer a female deer, Ray a drop of golden sun) Your welcome – I know you love me.

lugubrious, because it is meant for things that look or sound sad, but the word sounds silly and feels fun to roll around in your mouth. And when I am depressed, I am still often too silly for people to realize it … though I don’t know how fun I’d be to roll around in one’s mouth. Very, I assume.

periwinkle, because it is the ultimate calm down word. The color is soothing, and if you are extremely angry, then whisper “periwinkle” softly, slowly, and with a bit of menace, it does a fan-damn-tastic job of relieving stress.

and finally, “congradudlion” which is absolutely not a real word, but one of the fab mispellings that Cake Wrecks posted one year in a “congratulations, grads” round up. Say it. Congradudlion. CongraDOOOODleeeeeonnnnnnnn. So fun.

Onomatopoeia is fun because it refers to a word whose pronunciation sounds like the actual sound it makes — like MEOW or BOOM! But that’s not why it’s fun. Onomatopoeia is fun because it sounds like “peeing.” And who doesn’t enjoy saying that. Alabaster is another word. It’s just minerals (gypsum and calcite), but it sounds like a verbal middle finger. When someone cuts you off in traffic, roll down your window and shout “Alabaster!”

Booboise. Fisticuffs. Calaboose. Shenanigans. Assclown. Bombastic.
I’m also coming back into myself right now, after about seven months of depression, apathy, high stress, low motivation, high guilt, and low creativity. My broken body also played a role, as did my husband coming down with his own major health problems that I felt obligated to manage full time. It feels good to be back, even if I’m still fighting feelings of guilt about all the business inquiries I completely ignored, all the money I haven’t been making, and the clients who I didn’t provide my best service. I’m trying to be kind to myself and just celebrate that I’m back.

And just when I’m ready to scream because no one quite understands what I’m feeling down deep inside and can’t quite put into words because words ARE the problem and I haven’t written anything without it feeling like teeth are being drawn… Then here you are, saying it all for me. Thank you. I’m trying to take those first shaky steps back myself and the food poisoning has been an awful long time in going away.

I have to test this now that I’ve fixed it, and yay, it works, so I’m adding more words! I’m quite fond of the words flibbity-gibbet (from the Greer Garson version of Pride & Prejudice), twatwaffle, and fuckery.

I sympathize with your inability to write. I’ve been so overwhelmed and stressed lately that the best I could manage was to sit in my writing chair like a sack of old potatoes. I couldn’t even write crap. I needed to back away from the keyboard and recharge.

Oh, the pain of not writing!

For me, the trick is to know when it’s a lack of oomph, and when it’s a fear of writing badly. Sometimes it’s perfectionism that’s driving the car. For all ye writers who battle with that demon, I have tips for overcoming it, here: http://ow.ly/5Udu301929s

I am right in this same place right now. I spent a month in bed and another month since then trying to pull myself out of it. But progress is progress and every day that I spend one more minute among real people and not hiding away is a good day. Thank you for your words – all of them! They help me put the strange moods and emotions together with concrete thoughts. Words help and I’m so glad you are getting yours back!

Calliope: fun to say, and mispronounced it’s calli-ope which is also fun to say, double bonus!
vehicle: just say it: veHicle veHicle Mr Rogers pointed this one out to me years ago and I have to say, I agree with the king of sweaters and tennis shoes

pixelated – the way my mother (born in 1923, so this is a very old usage) used it meant “to be slightly tipsy”, not the tiny fuzzy pixels you get on your TV when the cable goes out or they’re blurring out someone’s bits and bobs
perambulation – to walk or stroll about
nalga – Spanish for buttocks, my roommate used to say I had a shapely nalga, always cheered me up
Gemütlichkeit – German word that describes a space or state of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer; considered untranslatable and covers a lot of territory, more of a feeling than a noun

Oh Jenny – have you heard the song “In the Gloaming” by Jonatha Brooke? I hope you love it as much as i do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRjMhypsYXE
Also synchronicity, twangdillo, and Beowolf. And of course embiggen always makes me smile.

Here are just a few of my favorites: Obstreporous. Recalcitrant. Persnickety. Perspicacious. Brilliant. Penchant. Cattywhompus.
I learned most of my Really Good Words from my grandmother, who loved her some fifty-cent words. I’ll never forget her telling me that I was not allowed to feed my chicken bones to the dog, because “they will perforate her gut”. I was FIVE and I could figure out what that meant. Gods, I miss her.
(There are two words on this green earth that I absolutely cannot stand, to say or to hear. “Honkytonk” and “nipple”. Gahhhhhh.)

Gruntle. It’s a perfectly good word (meaning “to make happy”) that we totally neglect in favour of its negative. I don’t know when we stopped talked about people being gruntled and started focusing on the disgruntled, but clearly that needs to change.

Funky (Do i FEEL it, feel bad or have the Fun KEY?)
stacky (because it’s been my nom de plume ever since the librarian misspelled my name on my first library card – age 6 – and really funny when you’re blossom into a DD)
PEACE (well because it means so many things – pie/peas/see ya later and let’s make up)

PS: Your words were just hiding – they like to play games to:) YOU’RE IT JENNY!

Diaspora (because I never knew how to say it until recently). Catastrophe (because how could something bad sound so beautiful?). Clutter. And passeggiata, the Italian tradition of taking a walk at sunset to see and be seen before having a snack and cocktail. My husband loves “bedroom” and “fusillade,” a relentless violent unleashing. Wow. I promise those are unrelated.

I hope this does not come off the wrong way, but I wanted to chime in and say that even though you may have had writers’ block, you haven’t been… totally blocked. You’re just… partially clogged, not… completely stopped up. You just need a little mental Draino! I’m sorry, that analogy got away from me. I just mean that even though you are struggling with your other projects, you still have produced some beautiful writing, on this blog, within the past year. You words were never gone; they just slowed down a bit.

Foible. Defenestration. Maladroit. And I struggled with my writing the last year too. Just came up with my first new idea in ages that makes me want to smile when I think about sitting down to write it. Hang in there.

I was trying to think of a word, but it’s hard because I’m native German, and I can’t come up with something in English at the moment.
So I asked my 13-year old son what his favourite word is.
“Slather!” he said without hesitation. I wondered why, and sunscreen slathering came to my mind. I asked him why it’s his favourite word, and he responded because it reminds him of slathering stuff on food. Then his eyes lit up, and he said,
“Food. Food is my favourite word, actually.” Leave it to a preteen boy not to think of food for one minute.

For their sound:
fünf (the word “five” in German. It sounds like a pillow fight in progress); spelunk; fluffy; twang; high-falootin’.
For their meaning:
shambolic (chaotic; in a shambles); atavistic (high-falootin’ way of saying “throw-back.”)(I once used it in a sentence and the fellow I was talking to (who I had a crush on) looked at me in surprise and admiration, exclaiming, “Tish! You spoke French!” That might be part of why I like it, to be honest); coprolite (fossilized doo-doo. Seriously. I think what I like best is that there is actually a word for that).
For their construction:
facetious, because it uses all the vowels in alphabetical order; apron, because it used to be “napron” back before we could write, and the “n” moved over to the article, transforming “a napron” to “an apron.” I am also tickled by any palindrome I run across: bob, madam, deified…
And the phrase “Boy, howdy!” just because.

Baffled – used all the time
Petrichor – I love the scent of rain on dry earth after warm days, and I love the word for it too
Pluviophile – I am a lover of rain
Marvellous – my friends
Bugger – the best swear word ever

Pixilated. I love this word. And approps of the word cellar; when I lived in Chile, students from the English college asked none English speaking people a series of words in English. The least favoritevword was Butterfly. The best sounding word was Cellar door.

*my favorite sentence comes from the opening line of a book told to us by my junior high English teacher: “The towers of Babel aspired above the morning mist.” I love that iteration of “aspire” and it’s stuck with me two decades later.

Backpfeifengesicht. A German word which means ‘a face crying out to be slapped’. We need more words like this.
Kerfuffle. So much fun to say and lightens the mood when you’re truly in a kerfuffle.
This one time I asked my Chinese friend if I had gotten a Chinese word right and he told me that his rule of thumb was just to mash syllables together and it would most likely be an Asian word.
Also fuck. Short. Simple. To the point. Says a thousand words at once.

Desirous (thanks to Jack Tripper on Three’s Company), Not sure if it’s a word, but it’s a favorite. PLETHORA, seriously, truly, salty, axe. The next time someone needs to axe me a question, I’m going to axe their head off. And SHITBALLS. That’s not really a word, but I use it all the time.

Peduncle. (Puh-dunkel) Because it sounds epically insulting in a smart way and you could probably get away with using it in wildly inappropriate ways in conversation. But it’s an actual word that refers to the muscle between the dorsal fin and tail of a whale (and some other stuff).

Effervescent (People used to describe me as such when I was younger. Then age, anxiety, depression and chronic pain kicked in). Lunar. Bibliophile. Snapdragon. Puppy and kitten (for obvious reasons). Challah (because it’s so damn good). Brie (favorite cheese and just an all around great word. Almost named a dog this). Tidal. Downpour. Loquacious (because once I get going, I SO am). Afghan (like the blanket, because I have some nice memories wrapped in them). Musical. Artistic. Vampire (because of Anne Rice, not twilight). Lionine. Vulpine. Gelfling (because Jim
Henson). Labyrinth. F**k (not very educated I know, but a great word.)

Also, reciprocity, phantasmagoric, cathartic, and treat. Treat makes me think of happy things, like your mom picking you up from school as a surprise and taking you to get ice cream or to the bookstore.

Sometimes I just wander in my brain, creating dramatic sounding stories that I can actually see as printed, but they never get that far. Gloaming is frequently used. So are quixotic, discombobulated, and hoarfrost. I don’t know while that last one pops into my head.

I’m a Veterinarian so naturally “gubernaculum” is one of my favorites. Along with “waffles” and my personal favorite on describing something weird is “fucky”. I also like the term “cloacal kiss” (which means bird sex). And I have to agree that the word “velociraptor” is pretty awesome too.

Persnickety. Grace. Suptabaddhakonasana. (a yoga pose. I think it’s really 3 words, but when my yoga instructor says it, it sounds like one, and you got to use the french phrase, so I’m taking the liberty.

Tweeted this, too. Marsupial. It’s fun to say. Marsooooopial. Plus marsupials are amazing animals, so bonus! Other faves: Eglantine. I don’t know why. It just sounds elegantly silly. So does escarole. Penumbra. It’s poetic and mysterious. So is the word. 🙂 Noodle. Because there’s nothing not to love about noodles. And it’s a useful word, too, applicable in so many different ways.

Floccinaucinihilipilification. Because after reading it in Heinlein’s Number of the Beast in high school, it took me two years to find a copy of the OED so I could look up the definition: “to judge as worthless”.

Stratigically. I pride myself as a former Long Islander to be able to spit that word out. We have a weird accent. Some words just won’t come out right. But I can say that one. And it’s kind of a big important word. I love the sound of it. I use it every chance I get. I’m a Texan these days and avoid words that I can’t spit out right. But I got stratigically. Hope I spelled it right! My tree trimmer even gave me a high 5 as she said she couldn’t say it. HA! Yes,
I used it on my tree trimmer.

Haberdashery. That word always takes me back to the little shop of my grandpa, a tailor. My grandma was always busy with the little things, hence and for a long time I never knew they had a name: Haberdashery. Haberdashery. Haberdashery. In Dutch it is even more beautiful: fournituren!

Cinnamon and cassia – both words for spice in the same family, the sibilance adds to the sense of exotic flavors from far off lands and gives off a cinnamony ‘scent memory’ too. Plus I love Cinnamon Carter

Discombobulated, kerfluffle, and lyckost (luke-ohst). The last one is Swedish and literally means “happy cheese.” It’s used as an expression of happiness or good-natured jealousy, or at least it was 20 years ago when I learned it… Oh, and I also like ЁЖ (yawszh), which is Russian for hedgehog. That was the first word I learned. Very practical. 😀

“But it’s better than where I was last week when I couldn’t remember a single melody and my feet went missing. This is a metaphor. Not a great one, but it’s a push that moves the rusty hinges and turns a useless broken wall into an almost door.”
That makes perfect sense to me. Love your writing!

Pandoric (adj): A piece of information that you want to know until you know it and then wish you had never learned it. This is a neologism by Mottelz over on HitRECord, submitted for a dictionary challenge. I love the way it sounds, and I love the way it calls up the Pandora’s Box myth and is just perfect.

Foible. It’s fun to say and it just seems more gentle to all of us to say “we all have foibles” than “man, we are really screwed up.” I also love that my family knows it’s my favorite words, because we have talked about favorite words and that’s awesome.

Rectashitilitus – when you are backed up so far your eyeballs turn brown. Full of it. Not an actual word but should be. Thanks to my dad, I learned that one. Also a good insult when you want to insult someone to their face, behind their back.

Farallon (islands near San Francisco), Sepulveda (like the way it sounds), misty, adventure, graceful, chime, kitty-corner, euphemism, pffft, exactitude. And many more, but my brain is more interested in chocolate right now 🙂

I love words too. I wrote a thriller novella once called The Ethereal Darkness. Here’s the poem that goes with that story.
Saying Goodbye
The dust covered trail lead to the moonlit field.
The light bounced off the cars, long forgotten, silent dinosaurs.
Rusted wrecks, playing silent witness to the night.
Their hollow eyes stared ahead and he felt them burning into him.
He touched her face, her eyes still open, blank, facing toward heaven.
The whippoorwills were calling back and forth through the trees.
Lightning bugs, blinking out their Morse code, danced about her.
He left her in that wild place, to sleep. Too late for dreams though,
much too late for dreams.

rhabdomancy, n., the use of a divining rod for discovering subterranean water (Granny Clampett had the skill, although I never once heard Jethro call it that. And no, I don’t know a single person who might need to use this in real life, but come on … it’s a really cool word.)

Fidget, fiddlesticks and fiddle-de-dee. Miracle. Tempestuous. Ease. Alackaday. Orange, because it makes whatever word you put next to it brighter, and also it doesn’t rhyme – it’s like a word prime number. Flaunt. Frabjous. Fubsy, which was one of my special nicknames for my darling Marmeee.

but I know what you mean. I used to write fiction all the time. then I had two strokes 8 years ago and I’m recovered from those, and the one I had two years ago, but I can’t do math in my head anymore (I used to do calculus like some people do crosswords) and I haven’t written anything good or even bad and of a decent length in 8 years and it scares the crap out of me that I never will again, so thanks for this and sorry for the run on sentence

Doppelganger, flummoxed, gargoyle, skedaddle, argle-bargle, and any kind of British slang, like putting “bloody” in front of everything, i.e. “I went to bloody work and my bloody tosser boss was being a bloody arsehole so I shouted ‘bollocks’ and told him to bugger off.” I love cussing in British.

Wabi-sabi: finding the beauty in imperfect things. The Japanese have all the good words.

Hygge from Denmark: It is an all-encompassing word meaning basically the essence of coziness. Like the idea of lighting candles on a dark cold night and snuggling up with cocoa and a book and a blanket. One of my favorite words!

You have such nice words, me on the other notso nice. My most favorite words are fuck, cunt and whore. I especially like them when I am driving. Road rage reigns supreme in my little corner of the world. I adore your writings and your pets!

I lost my words years ago when my vindictive ex stole my journals to use against me in a custody battle. I was scared to put any words down anywhere for so long. Thank you for reminding me how much l love them and that they’ve waited for me. You brought me home and I am forever grateful.

oh and there’s a kind of grass called kikuyu that is just a mouthful of joy! You will be the first to know when I remember the words that I love to write.

Discombooberated- something my super conservative father used to say in place of the ‘bobulated’ correct pronunciation. It made me laugh every time. Pizerinctum, another made up word that I use when I’ve seen someone fall but don’t know what hurts, as in: “Did you break your pizerinctum? Ouch. That smarts.”

Discombobulated because it’s one of the few vocab words I remember from high school, it’s often how I feel, and it sounds like bubbles so much more than effervescent which sounds like this hiss of a soda opening.

Both because it is fun to say and because so many people were being thrown out of windows that this word was created specifically to describe that action. I wonder how much alcohol was involved in the creation of this word?

I stopped taking Cymbalta last May and I’ve had problems with language since I quit. My words won’t come properly. I love
petrichor, which is the smell before rain, and osmosis. My 4th grade teacher had a poster with Osmosis on it and I’ve always loved the way it sounds. Plus I learned the word by osmosis so it’s meta. Lol
I love

Estaciennamiento – Spanish for “Parking” – 8 syllables. When I’m in Mexico you see it on signs all the time. I find myself saying it to myself over and over.
Popocatepetyl (sp.?) A volcano in Mexico. Rolls off your tongue.

Soporific. It’s not at all what it sounds like. I used to teach this to my students every year and then they’d go to math class and tell the math teacher that her class was really soporific. She would say, “thanks kids!” And then they would laugh. I never told them to do that… But they must have hated her as much as I did. Year after year, she never figured it out.

I love words, wonderful words, that bounce around in your head for days on end until setting up a lovely corner niche where they can flourish and grow into sentences. Some of my personal favorites: undulate, murmuration, sibilance, vapid, innocuous… Oh, I could go on for days, but then I’d miss out on reading all the words others have been posting…

I like dingleberry, dingdong, and dingaling. (I’m trying not to teach my little niece and nephew swear words so I substitute these fun words.)
I also like: love, grace, hope, happy, giggly, wiggly, peaceful, and snuggle. I think it’s more what they represent to me though?

Coming of a very long depression myself, with a smattering of anxiety, just to keep things totally unpredictable. I’m thankful for colors and flavors and that I can breathe again. Sending you love. Thank you for being so lovely & inviting us to play here in your sandbox. I had a lovely time. 💗

Incandescently, convivial, Neuroplasticity (fascinating stuff and fun to say).
I know I have more but can’t think of any at the moment, so I’ll share two things: One, I learned of the word “gloaming” listening to a CD by The Story. They do a gorgeous song called “In the Gloaming.” A bit sad, but so lovely. Two, here’s Miranda Hart embracing the word clutch:

crepuscular. It’s meaning is more beautiful than the word. Which makes the word beautiful. (look it up)(because I am a library lady and you need to look it up for yourself, that’s why).
creosote. It’s the name of my favorite plant. The plant that smells like rain. And since I live in the desert, it’s the most beautiful smell EVER.

Lenticular (len-tick-you-lar) You know those neat pictures that have the lined plastic over the picture so that if you shift your head to the right you see one picture and if you shift your head to the left you see another picture? That’s called a lenticular (noun). I used to have to type this word for work all the time, and my computer would always try to correct it to testicular. So in addition to just loving the sound of this word, it also makes me giggle!

Inexorable (which I learned reading “The Horse & His Boy”)
Euphoria (which I used to think meant the exact opposite of what it does mean… but it’s still a marvelous word)
Petrichor (which I learned from Doctor Who, although I understood its meaning immediately, being from the southwest)
haboob (the Arabian word given to enormous sandstorms which we get regularly here in Arizona – your first time in Tempe we had one!)

I’ve had writer’s block forever, too, so I sympathize. I can’t feel what you do, but I love you like blazes, so hugs and support from me always!

What you said makes perfect sense, and in my opinion, someone in your position has proved their sanity by recognizing and documenting the crazy. The true wackadoodles don’t realize anything is wrong. Here are a few of my words:
Minuscule- for when I need to emphasize how small I am feeling.
Funky- Fun to say and I love that it can have both positive and negative connotations.
Propensity/Proclivity- My own definition is that you are a master (as in not amateur) of being known for a tendency.Now if I could find a way to get paid for it…
Caffeinated- when used to describe the intensity of something having noting to do with caffeine. Also, high-octane similar situations..
nostalgia/melancholy- which seem to go together in my head.

Someone has probably already said this but I’m obsessed with it: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, the fear of long words and also a good example of irony. Also crisp, crunch and aghast are some other favorites.

I like the word Riffraff!
In fact I just named my stuffed and crocheted raccoon Riffraff! It was made in homage to your book to remind me that my way of thinking is shared and is okay! 🙂 thank you! Much love and respect!

“I won you..” says my six year old when she wins a board game. I don’t correct her… I just love hearing her say it that way. So, maybe I didn’t play by the rules in this exercise, but it’s a favorite…. However, to redeem myself I love the word blush.

And crepitus… because this crazy body has had it happen. And it was freaky weirder than you can imagine. Yep, wake up post surgical feeling like you have Rice Krispies under your skin, f’realz, and it’s not due to surgical drugs.

Kind of like popping bubble wrap, but so creepy because it’s MY OWN SKIN that is popping without breaking while popping, ya know?? !!!

Triboelectrification – an electric charge that develops from friction between certain materials. I learned it when it was a possible reason a NASA rocket launch might be delayed. For a while, there was a group on Facebook called “fans of triboelectrification.”

Serendipity. And maniacal. I like it if you say it like maniac and the just add the “ul” syllable on. Because to say someone is maniacal pronouncing it the right way makes them sound majestic or something. No room for misinterpretation the way I say it. Also? Catastrophe. Because a catastrophe can’t be that bad if it’s really just a cat ass trophy. Hmm, your words are just beautiful sounding. it seems like I tend to focus on finding words of doom and turning them into a joke so they – and what they convey – aren’t as bad and maybe can’t hurt me as much. Except serendipity. I just love that word. It sort of rolls right off the tongue.

Squamous, means scaly, can also be used to describe something that looks like a scale, like squamous cells. One of the best words I learned in biology class. And a new favorite learned from the comments here, petrichor. Also, ichor, the blood of gods or monsters.

Surreptitious. Particularly when used in describing something altogether mundane yet something you still want to do slyly – e.g, “surreptitiously munching on a peanut butter sandwich.” That’s from some tax court decision I read in law school – some judges are actually entertaining writers. Even tax ones.

The last three sentences of your third paragraph in this post make mincemeat of your assertion that you have writer’s block. And reinforce yet again why your writing carries great weight in my life. I’ve been trying for the past three years to make a broken door out of a useless wall. Not with writing…just with my ceaseless, circular, cerebral self sabotage bullshit.

I know – I think- that I can. We all can. Even if we begin only surreptitiously.

Nefarious.
Delicious
Savor
Malevolent
I’d say eviscerate, but it’s stolen now, but it’s so sharp I can’t help but love it.
Also, love this post. Been going through something a bit too similar. Wish I grokked it less actually.
Dear brain, please stop trying to kill me.
It’s like my brain has taken me hostage & I have to realize it & be the hostage negotiator & then other parts of my brain are like “we don’t negotiate with terrorists”, meanwhile I have to hope that the part that wants to killme didn’t trigger something horrible, and the parts that want me to live have the energy to give a fuck. Exhausting. All while being sensory overloaded because I dared to try &-take a walk like a normal person so now I’m hiding under my covers too afraid to go get food & my body hurts from having to resort to emergency food with HFCS. Agoraphobia, corn allergies & depression are the gifts that keep on giving.

Nefarious.
Delicious
Savor
Malevolent
Delightful
I’d say eviscerate, but it’s stolen now, but it’s so sharp I can’t help but love it.
Also, love this post. Been going through something a bit too similar. Wish I grokked it less actually.
Dear brain, please stop trying to kill me.
It’s like my brain has taken me hostage & I have to realize it & be the hostage negotiator & then other parts of my brain are like “we don’t negotiate with terrorists”, meanwhile I have to hope that the part that wants to killme didn’t trigger something horrible, and the parts that want me to live have the energy to give a fuck. Exhausting. All while being sensory overloaded because I dared to try &-take a walk like a normal person so now I’m hiding under my covers too afraid to go get food & my body hurts from having to resort to emergency food with HFCS. Agoraphobia, corn allergies & depression are the gifts that keep on giving.

Spleen!! (I love it so much I adopted it on Wordnik.) Broom (using one is boring, riding one would be cool, it can sound ominous when said out loud).

I lost my words for almost 10 years after my youngest daughter died. I found art. I kept singing. The singing and the art saved me. When my oldest daughter died, I didn’t lose my words. A lot of them were ugly and mean and even vicious. But that’s how I felt about the universe. Still, words and singing saved me. They save me every day because I still need to be saved. Because… well, you know. Depression lies.

Summer afternoon (thanks, Henry James). Palomino. Angst. Brillig and mimsy from The Jabberwocky. I think brillig must be like the gloaming – or maybe the corresponding dawn time-place, and mimsy is that waking up feeling.

I almost forgot–abendsonnenschein (just what it sounds like–evening sunshine) and porphyria (disease with symptoms that make you look like a vampire). Thanks for introducing me to petrichor, and special thanks to library lady pointing out the contrast between the sound of crepuscular (which sounds vaguely unwholesome or dirty to me) and its lovely meaning.

Ausgezeichnet
I’ve loved that word ever since I learned it in Grade 9 German. One of it’s meanings is “excellent”, so it’s a great word to use when someone asks you how you are and you are in a great mood.
“Wie geht es dir?”
“Ausgezeichnet!”

I am/we are glad you’re back 🙂
I, too, like the words cylindrical and gloaming. I also like: occipital, mesozoic, pterodactyl, f*ck, amorphous….and I’m sure there are more, but that’s what I can think of right now.

Embolism – beautiful word that rolls around my mouth like a piece of really good chocolate. But it describes a terrible, deadly event. The paradox makes me like it even more. Oh, and Paradox. Fun to say and i love a truly mindboggling paradox. And Mindboggling.

I just might have a fear of phosphenes… because those flashes of light are also a potential indicator that my retina may have detached. Again. Like, the left eye is totally shot and I’ve already had emergency retinal surgery for the right.

I love that other people also picked Defenestrate. I learned it in a game of Fictionary in the 8th grade and would tell anyone who bullied me, “I will Defenestrate you!!!” it was far more satisfying then saying “I will throw you out a window!”. I also love the word “Fantastical” which is not a real word, but I had a teacher who said it when we went above and beyond just mere “fantastic” work. It’s like Van Gogh or Mozart or Misha Collins level of Fantastic.

Any time I hear or read the word ‘superstitious’ I hear it in Stevie Wonder’s voice.

My words?

Numinous. Aglow. Afire. Crystalline. Gracious. Ephemeral. Taffeta (the word itself rustles!) Silver used to be one of my favorite words, until we let the late FIL name one of the cats. He chose ‘Silver’ as the cat’s name, and now the beauty of the word ‘silver’ is rather mangled because of sentences like “Silver goddamn it!” and “Silver! Stop shitting on the carpet!”

Now, if we’re going to go with ‘most used words’, I’ll have to go with fuck, cuntflaps, and arsenuggets.

Roaming in the gloaming
On the Bonnie banks of Clyde
Roaming in the gloaming
With my lassie by my side
When the sun has gone to rest
That’s the time that we love best
Oh it’s lovely roaming in the gloaming
(an old Scottish song that sticks in my head periodically)

Diesel…my constant companion. Poopala…One that makes me smile because it was what my late husband would call me at certain, special times….not that, get your head out of the gutter, lol! Another favorite….when I emerge from the dark and can see lots of uplifting light, I feel so many things that the best way I found to describe it in one word is FANTABULOUS!

Hope you are all feeling FANTABULOUS today or at least a day very soon.

percocet (for the sound, not the drug itself although it can be awesome when you need it)

anadamabread –said as one word, it’s bloody soothing

tambora. When I was just beginning to speak, mother said this was a word I used to substitute for almost anything. tambora tambora tambora. A friend of mine tells me this means ‘drum” in Italian or Spanish

ronglily–another childhood comfort word that I still think of now and then.

nephritis, necrotic, onomatapoeia, and anna maria alberghetti, what a wonderful name to say

Two things about words (Or a lack thereof):
#1: My youngest daughter (now 23) suffers from hard to treat depression and schizophrenia. When she’s been in her deepest darkest places she writes the most heart-wrenching poetry. I was hoping she would become a writer – she has the power to reach far with her words; but as we’ve tried different meds and finally found a combination that seems to be working really well for a relatively long time, her access to that place in herself where that writing comes from is absent. Ultimately I’d rather she were healthy, of course, but I do miss those writings. This should also give hope to those suffering, she’s has been through so much in her short years and is in a very good place right now, mentally.

#2: TIM MINCHIN is really really spectacularly fucking Great! His word play and word choices in his songs are terrific and such fun for any word-aholic. ‘Inflatable You’ has marvelous wordplay.

Cacophonous. See also disconcordant.
Tranquility and twilight (nothing to do with those friggen books, more Zelda).
Verbose and loquacious (thanks 5 years of latin. Also ebrious and mendacious though they may not be the best characteristics).
(Admittedly one or both might be misspelled by the time this posts since autocorrect is being a prat (also a goody).

So glad your words are back. I understand, my daughter is/was an excellent writer, and her words left for a long time. Some have come back, hoping more will.

One work that had my friends and I in hysterics was “keen”. I mean, we laughed for about 20 minutes! You had to be there, but it is still a funny word to me.

I love words, long ones, obscure ones, angry ones, loving ones. People today do not have the vocabulary to express exactly what they mean. I wish it weren’t true. The few of us with many expressive words continue to use them and baffle others. It can be fun! LOL

So many good ones here! One I learned in massage school that just makes me smile is crepitus. crep·i·tus
a grating sound or sensation produced by friction between bone and cartilage or the fractured parts of a bone.

I love how so many people have an opinion on this! As some of my favourite words have already been listed, I’ll give these two a mention – mirth and condone. They’ve always interested me because their meaning appears to contradict how they sound.
So glad to hear of your progress.

gezellig, Dutch. I understand it as cosy, warm, with friends/family
from wiki:
translated as convivial, cosy, fun, or nice atmosphere, but can also connote belonging, time spent with loved ones, the fact of seeing a friend after a long absence, or general togetherness that gives a warm feeling.

Osseocarnisanguineocartilaginonnervomedullary. I learned it (I hope I’m remembering it correctly) from my 1970s Guinness Book of World Records, which claimed that it held the record for the world’s longest word that’s not a proper noun, and it’s supposed to be an adjective describing the human body. Enjoy!

I think I posted yesterday anonymously but I’m not sure. I want to comment again because there are so many words I love. My favourite instagram blog is Dictionary.com. Because I’m not a giant nerd or anything.

Love this book, Jenny. I already own two hardcover copies, one to keep and one to share. Now I have the Ebook, too. Mental illness runs in my family. It gives me hope to have found something to connect with AND laugh about. Thank you so much! Lyn

Also, I JUST heard this phrase in Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore, and I can’t stop laughing:
“Thou mendacious fuck-weasel!”
So, add Mendacious (lying), and Fuck-weasel (fuck-weasel) to my list.

I love that you made that list! I’ve been keeping a list on my iPhone for years. Whenever I hear a new word I love, or remember an old word that tickles me, I add it to the list.

Some examples:
Fug – I can just imagine that smell that you’d describe as a fug. gag
Ephemeral – Like a ghost with a wispy dress floating down a hall
Lugubrious – I always imagine a big, sad sack. lol Like a really sad toad. Or a Vogon.
Insouciant – Some fancy pants dude who is a total douche and doesn’t care about anything.
Tincture – An awesome potion that will make me thin. lol
Flounce – How I would love to be able to enter a room!
Pomposity – This word is a big, fat, Englishman with a monocle and a cigar! 🙂

I love the German words gemutlich and gemutlichkeit. The first means pleasant, warm, cozy, and familiar, like a warm cup of tea or a soft chair; the second suggests a setting for all of these things, like having that tea in the chair with a fire in the fireplace and rain tapping on the windows. (ga-MOOTlich-kite)

illiterate: not my favorite word. I just can’t help wondering why the word used to describe the lack of ability to read is so damn long. If you can’t read I suppose the word to describe the condition can be a mile long and it really wouldn’t matter cause you can’t read it….excuse me, I have to go slap myself in the back of the head.

I liked the way people described amounts in Krio. If you just needed a little, you asked for ‘small small’. If you needed a lot, you asked for ‘beaucoup beaucoup’. I’d like to integrate them into my regular usage, even if no one else would grin at them. On a diet but want some mac and cheese and someone asks you how much? “Oh, small small mac and cheese, please.” Over worrying how much mac and cheese you should be eating? “Beaucoup beaucoup mac and cheese for me.”

It reminded me of a word (which may be a real word but that I thought was a made up word) my family used a lot when I was younger – beaucoodles. I only spell it that way now because it seems like it’s some sort of bastardization of beaucoup. Otherwise, I’d spell it like we say it – boo-koodles. It also means a metric crapton of whatever has been acquired or is present.

#28 (Nat) said “Hiraeth: if I’m remembering correctly, this word means a feeling of homesickness for a place or time you cannot go back to or may never have existed. It’s a welsh word with no direct translation in English and I think it’s beautiful.” Sounds like what I remembered “fernweh” (German) meaning, but upon review, I read “a crave for travel; being homesick for a place you’ve never been,” or more simply, wanderlust. I’m going to adopt Hiraeth!

Komorebi (Japanese) the sunlight filtering through leaves (I like the meaning more than the sound)

This is extremely specific to my education, but my favorite word in the world is heteroskedasticity. If you care to become a stats nerd, you can learn about it here: http://www.statsmakemecry.com/smmctheblog/confusing-stats-terms-explained-heteroscedasticity-heteroske.html I also regularly brag that I can spell polyethylene terephthalate and sodium hexametaphosphate because of my job (my spell check only recognizes 2/4 of those, but I know they’re right). I mostly brag about those because I am FAR from a spelling bee champ, so those are the only national-spelling-bee-worthy terms I can spell off the top of my head (woken from a dead sleep…might be PTSD from working on stuff that involved typing those regularly).

I read my niece some bedtime stories this weekend, and she selected Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic. That was a good choice (humblebrag, I bought her that). I made a poor choice by going for “Prehistoric.” I have never been so glad that I paid attention in elementary school science AND English so that I could pronounce, or at least convincingly fake my way through, the names of all those dinosaurs. She humored me by giggling along and then telling me “that’s enough stories, I can go to sleep now. Thank you for reading to me.” Heart, melted.

Tintinnabulation is also a favourite of mine. Learned it first from one of my best teachers ever – Miss Tinston, 4th grade. She saved me and had a love of words that resounded. Also its a wonderful word to say – it reflects its meaning. Anyhow.

So many awesome words! Even as I read your post on FB my list started but now I see I never knew how to play the game.
Unfuckwithable- me, my mom and God willing my daughter
Room Service
Open Bar
Destination wedding – because it means I’m totally off the hook
Love all of the smart in your posts and even more in your comments.

Antidisestablishmentarianism. My dad taught it to me when I was twelve. Not a lot of opportunities to use it these days, though I’m sure in these wacky political times, somebody could claim the moniker.

While I was reading your list of words, something made me visualize them as a whole bunch of different fruits, cut up into a big jar, & jumbled all together. Then I thought, what would go with all those fruits? And I thought, wine, of course! I think this post made me think of word sangria?
I love words, though they fail me all the time.

Tangible: I discovered this word reading Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time sitting under my teacher’s desk (I was allowed, no worries) in the third grade. It always make me think of the fuzz on a peach or that sensation when you peel an orange and just the tiniest hint of juice sprays you. Twenty-some years later, it’s still one of my favorite words.

Clishmaclaver- I found this reading the Outlander series. Merriam-Webster tells me it means gossip or idle talk. I just love the way it sounds.

I love that so many different people love so many different words, each with their own reasons and stories behind them. Keep finding the words!

Folie à deux is my favorite word. This definition is taken from Wikipedia, because they say it best:
(French for “madness of two”), or shared psychosis, is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief and hallucinations are transmitted from one individual to another. Literally, the madness shared by two people. Although the reality of it is probably horrible, it seems incredibly romantic in some way.

Neuroplasticity, synchronicity, splendiforous (is that a real word?), serendipity, saqacious, and a lot more that I can’t think of now.
Since you like words, you may like a puzzle called “What’s that Word?”, which is a quiz puzzle if the most wonderful kind, and you’re hearing this from a person who doesn’t like puzzles. It’s the bomb. Really. You should take a look at it someday,
Hugs from a new fan,
Susi

I’m just resurfacing myself, after a seriously debilitating bout of anxiety/depression. My writer’s block has been coming more than going for the last 4 years, so I whole-heartedly empathize. I’m not lucky enough to have contracts yet, since I still haven’t finished a book to pitch someone to show that I’m any good, but (realizing that) I’ve made a more devoted effort. I still need to stop being so damned wordy all the times and places. That’s getting tedious.

Ohh! A word I like! Tedious!

I also like “percolate”, “shenanigans”, “estuary”, and “egregious”. “Thatch” can take a hike; couldn’t really pronounce it well as a kid, and I’ve never forgiven it.

Pterodactyl. Crystalline. Humbucker. Ombligo (which is Spanish for ‘belly button’). Existential (usually paired with ‘crisis’, for me). Ephemeral. Verdant. Tintinnabulation is also one of my all-time favorites, as is the poem it came from.

I LOVE that you and everybody else here has favorite words! I thought I was all alone in that! So here goes: discombobulate, kerfuffle, snickerdoodle (also good as an actual, you know, snickerdoodle), Guam, Yemen, suave, pterodactyl, Tyrannosaurus rex.

Warning. Urban dictionary ruins llves. I posted a pic one day on FB, gorgeous sunset and said my favortitr thing is walking in the gloaming. To which some people inquired what that was. Before I could answer someone gave urban dictionary’s definition. And my life will never be the same 😦

Abjure: To solemnly refuse
Abdicate: Basically the same thing
Abscond: To leave Hurriedly and Secretley
Sternklar: A beautiful German word without a close English match. It means it is clear enough to see the stars.
Wistful: this word has always had a sense of both nostalgia and regret for me.
Roiling: You can just feel this word as it’s said. It’s not just a crowd, it’s a roiling mass of humanity. It makes it seem dirty, gross, disquieting.
Disquieting: it’s just a nice one to describe something that makes you feel uneasy
Lilt: another word you can just sort of feel.
Regimentals: Uniforms and ornaments
Ecstasy: this word is really interesting when used in strange, abnormal ways.
Bight: a bend

Ah, I can relate! I recently wrote about how my battle with perfection was holding me back from writing. I wove the story into an actual throw-down between myself and this shadowy figure of perfection personified. Oh and I love the word “clairvoyant.”